Why the SimCity beta nonsense should be a reminder to backup your Steam games

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More and more titles are choosing to use Steamworks, so this notion that it's somehow not a problem if you take Steams subscriber agreement as written (enacted means jack) then yes it's an issue. Last year a bunch of games big and small launched with Steamworks and likely a lot more will this year.

Enacted is all that matters. You could write laws for an entire country if you wanted to. They don't mean a thing if they're not enacted/enforced. Silly boy, didn't you learn anything in social studies?

Originally Posted by Poor desperate little kid

Bar a couple of titles with MP components (ME3 & BF3) you don't need Origin to be running to play them. I launch Sims from my desktop and B:AC similarly ran sans Origin. It's essentially a shop/installer.

Ever check your Task Manager to be sure? In fact, do you even know what Task Manager is? Or what the keys on a keyboard are? I'm really not sure anymore, you're simply amazing me with your self-imposed stupidity.

Originally Posted by Poor desperate little kid

Shooop. You've been hoisted by your own petard, get over it.

Is it suddenly, "Let's play pretend" time? Why don't you take a nap and let the grown-ups finish talking first.

Originally Posted by Poor desperate little kid

Year old news articles and Chinese whispers from other forums with out of context quotes?

New articles which confirm it actually did in fact happen. Did you go out and buy a sandbox just to bury your head into before writing this post?

Originally Posted by Poor desperate little kid

AFAIK no ones been permanently banned from Origin and frankly I don't care all that much if someone did, because what EA did/does or didn't do doesn't invalidate the very fact that Valve can do exactly the same at any given moment. I have games on Steam and I have games on Origin, I don't waste my life worrying about vague phantasms, of let them preclude me from doing what I enjoy in my free time, which is play games. Feel free to continue fearmongering and beating your chest about how you'll never ever buy an EA game ever.

I feel like I'm watching a hobo trying to eat a brick for a dollar. It's funny but kind of sad seeing you flail about with nothing but projections, fallacies, and general stupidity.

I can't find a decent link now and I'm not at home to search my books, but let me just note that I never said striking "resolves every single problem". It can fail, and often does. But if you think that the rights to work 8 hours a day, of having paid vacations, sick leaves, maternity/paternity leaves, etc., were achieved peacefully, well, all I can say now is that you're incredibly wrong.

Yes, there were strikes. But there was also lobbying and greasing of politicians and actual negotiatons. Say what you will about Teddy "Greatest Badass Ever" Roosevelt, but he had the right idea: Screw everyone, let's compromise.
Did strikes and violent confrontation factor in? Of course. But it was just a tool and arguably made things worse in more than a few situations. It is a tool that is meant to be used alongside more peaceful approaches.

My entire point is: The strike is an action that only serves to polarize parties even more and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

(another side note, but I'm a Brazilian sociologist with plenty of American friends, and one thing that always strikes me is how ignorant most Americans I know are regarding workers' history and struggles - possibly because of the stigma the Cold War attached to anything that might even faintly be connected to Marxism. Anedoctal evidence, certainly, but there it is.)

(I swear the pun was unintended)

I think a big factor is that the american mentality is: We believe hard work accomplishes things, regardless of all the evidence thrown in our face otherwise. Everyone bashes us for our super-long work weeks, but that is because a large percentage of us believe in getting the job done. It all goes down to "The american dream".

I have many French coworkers for example. Their mentality toward work is "I will put in the number of hours I am obligated to work, and then I will go home. And when I am not at work, I do not deal with work. And if I feel I am working too hard, I will take a break or go on vacation. If I don't finish something on time, it can wait.". And that is indeed a nice concept. But to a lot of us americans (Eagle land, woo!!! :p), that feels more like "Yeah, I am gonna do the bare minimum. Screw you if we have a deadline". But to them, we probably come across as "I am gonna work myself into an early grave in an attempt to meet a meaningless deadline".
Then you have my Chinese coworkers who pretty much work 24/7 (at least, until they get americanized a bit :p). And we Americans think they are batpoop insane.

So it isn't a matter of being "ignorant", it is just being willing to tolerate varying levels of getting reamed in the ass. But, like you said, it is all anecdotal.

Originally Posted by deano2099

That's the key though isn't it? They get to make that argument, because they get a trial. And a jury of peers. With most online services there isn't even an appeals process, and the ones that have them aren't exactly transparent about it.

Okay. Go take a dump on stage at a movie theatre and see if you get a trial before you are thrown out. You might get one later, but it won't have anything to do with if you are allowed to watch the rest of The Princess Diaries or not.

Or is your argument that we need an entire court trial every time service is denied for whatever reason?

But what of a joke about hate speech? Or what if I quote the guy before to point out how awful he's being? Or I'm doing it ironically? Or my hate speech is just directed at women which apparently is fine on gaming forums but then the rules change and I get banned? Or my hate speech is directed at 'casuals' which apparently is fine on gaming forums but then the rules change and I get banned?

Then you censor it or you realize that "doing something ironically" doesn't work too well on the internet?

Or, gasp shock and amazement, you don't engage in hate speech at all. Even if you disagree with someone, you don't have to call them derogatory terms. And if you must, then I won't shed a single tear if the rules change and you are thrown out.

But the games aren't explicitly sold as a lease. Go to the Steam store page of a game you've bought "You already own this game". Except you don't technically own the game, but you do when it's convenient that you do and you don't when it's convenient that you don't. Were the fact that it was a lease made clear, Steam would have a problem as people would understand that the value proposition was not as good as it was out-right buying the game from a shop (yeah I know, but average Joe doesn't) so feel aggrieved at having to pay the same amount.

So now we are complaining about them NOT ramming legalese down our throats at all times?
And sure, you "own the game". You just don't have permission to use their content servers. Just because I have a car parked in a parking garage doesn't mean said garage has to go out of their way to shuttle me between my home and the car. And if they have to close down the building for some reason, that is in the contract I signed with them.

And in practice, the distinction of the lease means nothing to the "average Joe". That is WHY most people never read the EULA: It doesn't affect them. That is not to say they shouldn't read it (people REALLY should), but the system works thus far.

Indeed, so we have a problem that Steam are essentially selling hot air at the moment. They're not actually selling permanent access to their servers whenever you want, but nor are they setting a time limit. See I'm aware my shop buying analogy doesn't work, but nor does your broadband contract one either, as that's an ongoing fee where you buy the service for discreet amounts of time.

You are right. So what say we stop trying to muddy the waters with tangentially related examples?

Do you really think they're open and ready to discuss and co-operate on this though? Do you really think they are not already lobbying their law-makers to ensure that they get their way and we don't get a look-in? Because they are. These EULAs might not have been tested in court but don't think for a second the big firms don't have people lobbying governments to explicitly make the current provisions legal so that, when they are, they win. That's happening. They're doing shit. They're not sitting around going 'hey gamers, what would you like us to do?' [albeit at the moment this is more with the movie companies and stuff but it will affect us].

I think companies like CD Projekt using PR to provide a pretty damned tolerable approach is a sign that they are willing to work with us
I think companies at least shifting to only using a few DRM models rather than 90 million, is that they are willing to work with us.
I think the fact that pretty much no games use activation-model securom anymore is a pretty god damned big sign that they are willing to work with us.

Have the publishers benefitted from all of those? Hell yes. They always will. THat is why it is a give and take. And compared to the crap that was Starforce and non-automatically-refunding activations (if you uninstall without using the tool, you lose an activation FOREVARRRS!!! :p), I like Steam and Origin which are a MUCH more lenient approach. Obviously it limits the second hand market, but we also don't realy have a second hand market for consumables like food (that you buy at a restaurant/fast food/whatever).

But either way, do you think that gamers basically running around screaming "FUck you, fuck you" over and over is doing anything? If it is, it is just making us look like doctors going on strike for not having chocolate pudding. And that gives the publishers less incentive to work with us, seeing as we have repeatedly shown that boycotts don't work (Howdy Modern Warfare 2 :p).

Having these sorts of things covered in a bad light on sites like this is helpful. This is fighting the system. The more publicity, the more it will seem to matter, the more likely it is to get national press and consumer organisations interested.

In theory, I agree. In this specific case, I think it actually hurt our cause. Because you take a somewhat strong EULA, make a HUGE deal out of it (when the rationale was very obvious from the start...), and then make a snide "Well, it couldn't be any worse" parting shot when EA actually fixes it. That says to me "Why should we even care? We are going to catch hell no matter what we do". And I'll bet money that it didn't stop (a noticeable number of) people from registering for the beta (who were originally going to do so).

Obviously we need to find a middle-ground, but the thing is, me, Bobby Consumer here, I'm at the far right side of the ground wanting all my rights and fuck the companies yeah. And the current EULAs are at the far left of the field saying I can get to fuck and I'll eat the shit I'm given. And then EA manage to put out something that somehow manages to be even further on the left of the field, somewhere up in the seats. They're moving away from the middle ground, so yes the response should just be a straight-forward 'fuck off'. And y'know what? It worked.

Except that they fixed it pretty fast.

And yeah, having two parties vehemently opposed to each other do nothing but attack and try to blame each other is a GREAT approach. Look how great the US congress is working right now :p

But you're our enemy of mankind.

I love you too :p

Seriously, I do think the current system favors the publishers/distributors too much. But, at the same time, I think just ranting and constantly viewing the big corporations as "the enemy" gets us nowhere. If anything, it gets us ignored and dismissed.

Last edited by gundato; 23-01-2013 at 06:50 PM.

Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.

Yes, there were strikes. But there was also lobbying and greasing of politicians and actual negotiatons. Say what you will about Teddy "Greatest Badass Ever" Roosevelt, but he had the right idea: Screw everyone, let's compromise.
Did strikes and violent confrontation factor in? Of course. But it was just a tool and arguably made things worse in more than a few situations. It is a tool that is meant to be used alongside more peaceful approaches.

My entire point is: The strike is an action that only serves to polarize parties even more and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

I'm not really disputing your last sentence, since that's your stance on the general usefulness of strikes and it's a reasonable one (but wrong, in my opinion). However, I still feel you're getting the history wrong (or at least part of it). Namely: of course there was negotiation and compromise - but only *after* the strikes and confrontations became enough of a nuisance to force the issue into the political agenda. And I'm not focusing on the USA here, that was the general pattern worldwide.

The fact of the matter is: today most of us enjoy some labor rights that we take for granted. But for those rights to be acknowledged and made into laws, many people had to die, many people starved, many people were persecuted and jailed. Back in the day, striking wasn't a casual, "blah blah blah I hate the system" attitude. Rather, it was an extremely serious decision because workers simply had no social security network to fall back on. It was a conscious decision to go through extreme personal hardship (and often dragging your family into it) with pretty much the whole of society against you - save your fellow workers, on what are *still* some of the most impressive examples of self-organization and solidarity you can find anywhere.

And *that's* what most people tend to forget/not know regarding labor history. All our current benefits are based on those people and their suffering during the 19th/early 20th centuries. Which is why it irks me a bit when you play down the role of strikes and struggles in history. Which leads me to...

I think a big factor is that the american mentality is: We believe hard work accomplishes things, regardless of all the evidence thrown in our face otherwise. Everyone bashes us for our super-long work weeks, but that is because a large percentage of us believe in getting the job done. It all goes down to "The american dream".

I have many French coworkers for example. Their mentality toward work is "I will put in the number of hours I am obligated to work, and then I will go home. And when I am not at work, I do not deal with work. And if I feel I am working too hard, I will take a break or go on vacation. If I don't finish something on time, it can wait.". And that is indeed a nice concept. But to a lot of us americans (Eagle land, woo!!! :p), that feels more like "Yeah, I am gonna do the bare minimum. Screw you if we have a deadline". But to them, we probably come across as "I am gonna work myself into an early grave in an attempt to meet a meaningless deadline".
Then you have my Chinese coworkers who pretty much work 24/7 (at least, until they get americanized a bit :p). And we Americans think they are batpoop insane.

So it isn't a matter of being "ignorant", it is just being willing to tolerate varying levels of getting reamed in the ass. But, like you said, it is all anecdotal.

Again, I think you're being perfectly reasonable - only you failed to reply to what I actually said, which is that in my experience Americans are ignorant about the *history* of labor rights. And your reply is about the current American attitude to work - it says nothing about the lack of historical consciousness I mentioned. See what I mean?

I'm pointing out power politics. It is a viable tool, and clearly effective in influencing corporate policy.

But I don't expect somebody whose contribution to this discussion rests on the term "fanboy" to understand.

Please explain the reason why The Witcher 2 had an 80% piracy rate then? CDProjekt bent over backwards to accommodate 'gamers needs' No DRM, lots of 'added value' to the release with extras and yet 4/5 gamer's elected to pirate it. What exactly were they 'protesting' Nalano?

I'm not really disputing your last sentence, since that's your stance on the general usefulness of strikes and it's a reasonable one (but wrong, in my opinion). However, I still feel you're getting the history wrong (or at least part of it). Namely: of course there was negotiation and compromise - but only *after* the strikes and confrontations became enough of a nuisance to force the issue into the political agenda. And I'm not focusing on the USA here, that was the general pattern worldwide.

And I am talking about a modern context.

The fact of the matter is: today most of us enjoy some labor rights that we take for granted. But for those rights to be acknowledged and made into laws, many people had to die, many people starved, many people were persecuted and jailed. Back in the day, striking wasn't a casual, "blah blah blah I hate the system" attitude. Rather, it was an extremely serious decision because workers simply had no social security network to fall back on. It was a conscious decision to go through extreme personal hardship (and often dragging your family into it) with pretty much the whole of society against you - save your fellow workers, on what are *still* some of the most impressive examples of self-organization and solidarity you can find anywhere.

That's nice. But it is:
1. Completley irrelevant to the topic at hand
2. A historical sideview that has little to do with how strikes and unions operate in modern times. The leaders who used to be freedom fighters who cared about workers rights are about as corrupt as the employers these days (if not moreso in a lot of cases).

And *that's* what most people tend to forget/not know regarding labor history. All our current benefits are based on those people and their suffering during the 19th/early 20th centuries. Which is why it irks me a bit when you play down the role of strikes and struggles in history. Which leads me to...

And it irks the hell out of me when people play down the accomplishments made by the brave men and women in uniform throughout history, but it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Again, I think you're being perfectly reasonable - only you failed to reply to what I actually said, which is that in my experience Americans are ignorant about the *history* of labor rights. And your reply is about the current American attitude to work - it says nothing about the lack of historical consciousness I mentioned. See what I mean?

I was trying to steer away from what was getting dangerously close to a "stupid americans" comment...

And the reason we are "ignorant" is because it honeslty isn't as huge of a deal to us. We have what we want, we are content with it. And I bet that a bunch of your brazilian friends who aren't don't study the subject would probably have no idea either.

And if I "failed to reply to what you actually said", it is because I am trying to focus on the topic at hand. Because what you are doing is kind of my big issue with the way people are reacting:
Everyone is pretending this is a massive war where they are the heroes fighting against the tyrrany of Steam and that this is a labor rights issue that will put them down forever in history as heroes! It isn't. It really realy isn't. It is a situation where we are working our way toward a set of laws that we will then fiddle with until the end of time.

Which is one reason why I actually WANT EULAs to be tested and found to be legal. Because once there are actual legal grounds to study and examine, we will actually have progress.

Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.